The ability to produce smaller and smaller feature sizes on semiconductor integrated circuits has provided dramatic increases in the speed and capacity of information processing apparatus over the past ten years. This advance has now been slowed, however, by the increasing importance of interconnections on the monolithic circuits themselves. For example, the reduction in size of the active components, such as transistors, has resulted in a situation where more than half of the surface area is devoted to metallic interconnection lines. Also, since the input capacitance of the transistors has been significantly reduced, the capacitance of these lines can be the dominant reactance which slows the response of the circuit.
Previously proposed solutions to these problems often involve the use of optical interconnections. Typically, such proposals require the use of optical waveguide ("optical wiring") to replace the conventional electronic wiring. While this technique does provide, in principle, some advantages over electronic interconnections, it does not solve the problem of simplifying the complex wiring pattern required by circuits with very large numbers of active elements. The present invention provides a means for forming interconnections using optical signals that does not require complex optical wiring patterns.